1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to programming languages for computer systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for finding terminal classes in a collection of programming language classes.
2. Related Art
Object-oriented programming languages, such as JAVA, provide a powerful framework to application developers in the form of classes. When writing applications, application developers can use the functions in the core classes, or additionally, they can extend and modify these functions by adding their own classes to the application. It is very common for enterprise applications to use a variety of classes from a variety of different parties. For example, an application that accesses a database might use a class that is provided by a database vendor to access the data in the database. Additionally, the application might use a class or collection of classes from an interface provider to implement a Graphical User Interface for the application.
However, this powerful framework is not without its problems. As the number of classes within a given application continue to grow, it can be difficult for a programmer to determine which classes to use. If the entire list of classes is presented to the user, that list may contain classes which are not meant to be used because they are further extended by other classes that provide additional desired behavior. As more and more classes are added to the application, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine which classes should be used for specific functions.
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus to facilitate locating desired classes without the problems listed above.